Incarna

51 - Episode 16 Afghan Herbs

Day 12: Australian Afghan Herb Research Centre, Kandahar Province - Afghanistan

“Nah, signals … bugger it, bloody useless freakin' …” Sallay Mahomet, second generation Afghan Australian waved the hand piece at the sky, “why now, why plague me with this?” He pulled the handset to his ear again and struggled to make out the words.

“Sparks, yeah, nah, its a sand storm mate, too much static …” He pulled the handset away and stared at it then turned toward the southwest where another dust storm was threatening to blackout the whole of of southern Afghanistan. Sallay turned to Russell his assistant and handed him the handset. Russ shrugged and Sallay just shook his head.

“Canberra want us to link our drone through to them so they can check out the dust storm!” Sallay said with disgust. Russ looked at the drone control he held in his left hand then at the satcom in is right, then back at Sallay. “I don’t understand it Sallay, the control shows a strong signal but not the handset. The bandwidth for the comlink’s gone to shit. Russ hefted the Drone control handset toward the sky and slowly drew it in a series of arcs. He stopped occasionally and each time the arcs became smaller and smaller until they focussed around one point of the sky.

“Yep we’ve got a comsat directly over us!” Sallay looked up at that point of the sky and gave it the finger. The handset buzzed again, the voice was loud, “how’s that now?” it yelled. Sallay pulled the handset away from his ear and yelled back at it, “too bloody loud Sparks, what have ya done mate?”

“Rerouted through the drone control sat that should be over you now, this should even work through the dust storm!” Sallay smirked, "if you haven’t sent me deaf doin’ it that is!”

“Yeah right sorry," Sparks apologised and continued in one breath. " Look we need coverage as this storm comes through. Any damage to the old one and you get a new drone, better quality and cameras and extra funding for the rest of this year!”

“Tell Barden it’s next years as well. This is hard country here and I’ve got new varieties of Ephedra and Artemesia crops ready to harvest so if we loose any drones and some bastard steals the crops, the farmers’ll be back on the poppies!”

Sparky cut in, “… patchin’ you through Sallay …” “Barden here, how you copin’ Sarlie?” he said using the familiar.

“You’ve got a nerve callin’in a favour right now Barden, an’ I wouldn’t do it for anybody else, you got that boong bum!”

“Sure have towel head, and I’ll be out in person to deliver the contract, thanks mate!” “Righto see ya!” Sallay turned back to Russ and handed him the handset, “boong bum, towel head?” he asked. Sallay looked at him then smirked, “We go back a long way. No holds barred between us an’ always there for each other.” He looked up to where the satellite must be with the first discolouring of the sky by the storm starting to show. “Never saw this comin’ though.”

Sallay looked across their compound to where their three drones sat on their recharge platforms ready for launch. They walked across and Russ pulled the storm cover over the top of the two smaller ones as Sallay opened the control panel on the largest and reset the frequencies as Sparky had requested.

Russ joined him and checked the download of their previous flight was complete and the internal systems weren’t showing any effect from the storm. “It’s as yer mate Sparks said, the new system is unaffected so far!” He pushed the restart button which would bring it onto the new frequencies so that Sparks could use it remotely and watched the new screen come up. Nodding, he closed and secured all the panels and stepped back.

Sallay push dialed the last number received and waited. “It’s all yours Sparky! Yeah right, sure, do that!” and he thumbed the off button as the drone buzzed to life and lifted vertically of its pad. Sallay looked at Russ, “reckons he’ll fly a new one down from Kabul personally if he loses it!”

Russ smirked and headed off to lock all the gates and check for any loose items still laying around their compound that could become projectiles during the storm. Sallay watched the drone move off southwest toward the storm front and to the last known positions of an Al Qaeda patrol. Something, a shadow appeared briefly out of the storm front and Sallay lifted his binoculars out of his waistcoat pocket and tried to focus on it. Yes there …

“Allah be praised,” he said quietly drawing on his favourite grandfathers favourite saying. He lowered the binoculars then raised them again. He found the shadow and the camera button on the eNocs and started recording what he saw. It was rounded, organic even with what looked like facial features but the storm front shrouded it to much, Where those motors protruding from but no, they were shaped like hands.

Sallay dropped the eNocs as Russ returned, “compounds all secure! You right there Sallay, you look like youi’ve seen a ….” “You look, there, look!” Sallay handed the eNocs across and Russ quickly pointed them at the storm front. “Shit eh …” and again the audio of the shutter sounded from the eNocs, as he recorded what he saw.

Sallay stood staring and nodding to himself, “you old bastard Barden, that’s what you’re after. What the fuck is it mate?” he asked of his mate thousands of kilometres but only microseconds away via the satlink.

“Russ, handset?” “Here boss!” he replied grabbing the handset where he’d placed on Sallays day pack.

As Sallay took the phone there was a massive flash southward of them then a massive boom then three more in succession. They both hit the ground together and crawled toward the nearest shelter built into the blast wall of their compound.